Shaw (she/they) is an artist, facilitator and performer who works from the perspective of the body. Her multidisciplinary practice spans different and overlapping contexts that range from medium-specific to socially-engaged. She works with performance score, task-based devising, and improvisation. When she directs and choreographs, Shaw draws upon fiction, the vernacular, and her experiences on the ground within community spaces, in order to evoke imagery, metaphor and concepts that guide her creations. She sees the rehearsal as a practice of new ways of being with a group of people.

The horizontality of the three areas of her practice - creation, performing and facilitation - means that they are constantly in dialogue and exchange with each other. Shaw is interested in how we can live meaningful lives, and how art can create a space where human beings can wade into the morass of what it means to be human together in our current times. She seeks to create possibilities for people to question, understand and relate to one another. 

Shaw’s current direction involves further developing her series of outdoor roving participatory performances - ‘p a c e’ (2024) and ‘para para’ (2026) -  a series that explores the soft-politics of movement in a public space, and is a celebration of collective rhythm and joy. Shaw is also deepening interdisciplinary practice, and seeking more opportunities to create materially.